ADU/Granny unit utilities metering

[Simon Stahl]

I am thinking about converting my garage to a studio to rent it out. The one thing I am wondering about is how I can sub-meter PG&E and the water. I can pay for the tenants utilities as long as I am still living in the main house, but the plan is that I move out of there at some point and rent it out as well. In this case I certainly don't want to pay for any utilities anymore. How do you all handle that?

Btw: I was told that to meter it completely separate, it had to be handled as a different address and that this is not worth doing.

[Chris Mason]

Originally posted by @Simon Stahl:

Thanks everyone for the input. Sounds like I either have to 

1. do my own submetering and have the tenant report the readings to me (which I don't like too much)
2. have to include the utilities in the rent and pay them myself or 
3. add a fix price for the utilities to the rent. 

None of the three solutions are perfect, but it gives me at least something to think about.

 There's a solar panel company I'm familiar with that sub-meters with a web interface for the landlord to see how much was used by Unit A, Unit B, Unit C, etc, for a property that isn't officially a 3-unit and has one 'official' meter. It's a side accessory to the solar panels, so they won't do just that component, but it does show that there are private sector (eg, no big gov't process & 'official' meters not needed) solutions to this.